Top 10 Strategic Technology Trends for 2013 by Gartner

Gartner defines a strategic technology as one with the potential for significant impact on the enterprise in the next three years. Factors that denote significant impact include a high potential for disruption to IT or the business, the need for a major dollar investment, or the risk of being late to adopt.

David Cearley, VP, Gartner said, “We have identified the top 10 technologies that will be strategic for most organizations, and that IT leaders should factor into their strategic planning processes over the next two years.” “This does not necessarily mean enterprises should adopt and invest in all of the listed technologies; however companies need to be making deliberate decisions about how they fit with their expected needs in the near future.”

Mr. Cearley said that these technologies are emerging amidst a nexus of converging forces - social, mobile, cloud and information. Although these forces are innovative and disruptive on their own, together they are revolutionizing business and society, disrupting old business models and creating new leaders. As such, the Nexus of Forces is the basis of the technology platform of the future. 

The top 10 strategic technology trends for 2013

Mobile device battles: Mobile experiences eclipse the desktop experience. Consumerization drives tablets into the enterprise. Cloud and mobile are mutually reinforcing trends. Bring your own device trend accelerates. In 2013, mobile devices will pass PCs to be most common Web access tools. By 2015, over 80% of handsets in mature markets will be smart phones. 20% of those will be Windows phones. By 2015, tablet shipments will be 50% of laptop shipments, with Windows 8 in third place behind Apple and Android. Microsoft‘s share of overall client platform will fall to 60%, and could drop below 50%. In smartphones, Windows could pass RIM to be #3 player, and could be same size as Apple in units by 2015. Windows 8 will be “relatively niche,” with mostly appealing to enterprise buyers.

Mobile applications & HTML 5: Through 2014, JavaScript performance will push HTML5 and the browser as a mainstream application developer environment. There will be long shift to HTML5 from native apps as HTML5 becomes more capable. But native apps won’t disappear, and will always offer best experiences.

Personal Cloud: Cloud will be center of digital lives, for apps, content and preferences. Sync across devices. Services become more important; devices become less important.

Internet of Things: Internet of things is already here. Over 50% of Internet connections are things. In 2011,  over 15 billion things on the Web, with 50 billion+ intermittent connections. By 2020, over 30 billion connected things, with over 200 billion with intermittent connections. Key technologies here include embedded sensors, image recognition and NFC. By 2015, in more than 70% of enterprises, a single exec will oversee all Internet connected things. Becomes the Internet of Everything.

Hybrid IT and Cloud Computing: Changes role of IT.  IT departments must play more roles in coordinating IT related activities.

Strategic Big Data: Organizations need to focus on non-traditional data types and external data sources. Hadoop and NoSQL gain momentum. Big data will meet social. Five richest big data sources on the Web include social graph, intent graph, consumption graph, interest graph and mobile graph. Concept of single corporate data warehouse is dead. Multiple systems need to be tied together.

Actionable Analytics: Cloud, packaged analytics and big data accelerates in 2013, 2014. Can now perform analytics and simulation on every action taken in business. Mobile devices will have access to the data, supporting business decision making.

Mainstream In-Memory Computing: Changes expectations, designs and architectures. Can boost performance and response times. Enables real-time self service business intelligence. SAP and others will accelerate delivery of applications in 2012/2013 to leverage in memory capability.

Integrated Ecosystems: More packaging of software and services to address infrastructure or application workload. There will be more shipment of “appliances,” with software delivered as hardware. New trend: virtual appliances, which Gartner sees gaining in popularity over the next five years.

Enterprise App Stores: By 2014, there will be more than 70 billion mobile app downloads from app stores every year. Also by 2014, most organizations will deliver mobile apps to workers via private application stores.

Source:  Gartner,Inc., Forbes.